The Alliance
by Clare
Summary: One-shot featuring Adrian from District 5 and Fern from District 7 who become allies in the Forty-first Hunger Games


**The Alliance**

When they were launched into the arena, neither Fern nor Adrian had given any thought to forming any alliances, much less an alliance with each other. They were tributes in the Forty-first Hunger Games - Adrian was from District 5, Fern from District 7 - and they were both more concerned with trying to keep themselves alive for as long as they could. So, as soon as they had equiped themselves with weapons and supplies at the Cornucopia, they fled into the wooded hills which formed this year's arena. In the meantime, nine tributes, including Adrian and Fern's respective district partners, died in the bloodbath; the other seven were both from District 6, the girls from 8 and 9, both from 11 and the boy from 12. That evening, Adrian and Fern watched as the faces of the dead were projected into the sky, neither of them aware that they had set up camp within a few metres of each other.

Early the next morning, Adrian was just about to break camp when he found his path blocked by the girl from District 1, a beautiful but ruthless tribute called Ermine, who looked at him as a predator looks at its prey. Instinctively, Adrian grabbed for the knife he had obtained at the Cornucopia, even though he doubted he would stand much chance against her. She had trained for these Games all her life, whereas he had received no combat training until he arrived at the Training Centre. Not only that, but it was unlikely Ermine was operating alone this early in the Games; the rest of the tributes from Districts 1, 2 and 4 must be nearby, waiting to ambush him.

Ermine shook her head in mock disapproval at the sight of the knife in Adrian's hand. "Don't you know it's dangerous to play with knives? You could get . . ." She pulled out her own weapon, a short sword. ". . . hurt!" She slashed at the boy in front of her, but Adrian was a little too quick for her and dodged to one side seconds before she inflicted a potentially serious wound on him. She tried again; this time, Adrian managed to block her sword with his knife.

Adrian fought back as best he could, but Ermine quickly gained the upper hand. For all her beauty, she was physically stronger than him and she soon had him cornered. He was unable to get away and, judging by the smile on her face, Ermine knew it. To make matters worse, she had already disarmed him, so he could no longer even try to fight back against this beautiful but deadly tribute. Soon, she would thrust her sword into him and his cannon would sound.

* * *

But fate decreed that Adrian was not out of the Games yet. Just as he was thinking of his family and friends back in District 5 for what he thought would be the last time, a look of astonishment suddenly crossed Ermine's face. Seconds later, that look became permanently etched, as she fell forward, an axe lodged in her back. Boom! The cannon fired and Adrian needed no-one to tell him why. Who could survive being hit in the back with an axe? No-one, not even a highly trained Career like Ermine.

Just as Adrian was thinking he should get out of here before whoever had thrown the axe came to retrieve it, he saw a young girl running towards Ermine's body. She was probably around 5'2", with brown hair in pigtails, wearing the blue-and-white checked shirt, charcoal grey trousers and hooded jacket and sturdy brown boots that comprised this year's tribute outfit. She bent over Ermine and, grunting with effort, pulled the axe out of the dead girl's back. Adrian looked on apprehensively, fully expecting her to bury the axe in him next, but she simply wiped the blade on the grass and stashed the axe in her backpack.

"Looks like I just saved your life," she said, walking around Ermine's body and joining Adrian by the rock face. "I'm Fern, by the way. District 7."

"Is that where you learned to throw axes like that?" Adrian was curious, but still a little cautious; Fern seemed harmless enough, but she had just put an axe in someone's back. Then again, if she really wanted him dead, all she had to do was move on and let Ermine finish what she was doing. Unless her strategy was to hook up with someone, wait until they were the last two tributes left and . . . On the other hand, she had put her axe away, so at least she wasn't trying to kill him at present.

"Of course." There was an edge of pride in Fern's voice as she spoke. "I do come from the lumber district, you know."

"Yeah, that tree costume you wore at the tribute parade kind of gave that away." As he spoke, Adrian recalled his own tribute parade costume, a silver boiler suit with a working battery-powered fan for a headdress; it was meant to represent the turbines at District 5's power plants. At the same time, he also found himself thinking that Fern's skill with an axe could be useful in the arena. "You looking for any allies?" he added, not stopping to think about the implications. Taking on an ally this early in the Games was all very well, but you had to be prepared the possibility that you and your ally might be the last two tributes left standing. So you had to remember that your agreement was only temporary, that one or both of you would shortly die.

"Yes, if you are." Fern held out her hand for Adrian to shake.

Until then, Adrian had not even considered entering into an alliance with any of his fellow tributes, but he took Fern's hand in his, sealing a deal between the two tributes to look out for each other, to fight together. For the time being, at least. That done, they withdrew to allow the Gamemakers to retrieve Ermine's body, but not before Adrian had taken the sword which was still held in the District 1 girl's dead fingers.

* * *

Adrian and Fern knew they would be able to keep each other alive for a while, but they also knew they could not do so forever. Sooner or later, they must face up to why they were in this arena, why they had been taken from their homes and families. They were in the Hunger Games and the fundamental rule was kill or be killed; there was no escape. If your fellow tributes didn't get you, the chances were that something else would, unless you were strong, or clever, or lucky enough to outlive everyone else. And only one tribute was permitted to survive each Games.

Nightfall found Adrian and Fern sheltering in a cave they had found. It was fairly roomy inside, but the entrance wasn't immediately obvious, a bonus when you were in a Hunger Games arena. Sitting on the floor of their makeshift home, they watched as the projected image of the Capitol seal appeared in the sky, followed by the face of Ermine, the only dead tribute to appear tonight. Except, Adrian thought to himself, had Fern appeared on the scene just a couple of minutes later, there would almost certainly be another face in the sky. His face.

"Why did you do it?" he asked, as Ermine's face faded away.

"Why did I do what?"

"Save me. I mean, these are the Hunger Games - you could have just walked away and let her get on with it." It wasn't that Adrian wasn't grateful to Fern for saving him, but, as he said, she could just as easily have walked away, since there had been no alliance between them before they entered the arena. Instead, she had killed the girl who had been trying to kill him.

Fern shrugged. "No reason. I just can't stand the way the Careers lord it over everyone else, so I decided to try and take them out first. And, since I'm not very big, I figured they might not see me as a threat." She glanced at her axe, which was propped up against her backpack. "You just happened to be there," she added, though she had to admit having an ally was useful, especially when your strategy was to go after the Careers. She had been lucky this morning - Ermine had been hunting alone - but she knew the remaining Careers were still a danger. And there were five of them.

Five Careers who were the most powerful tributes in the arena. They had spent their lives training for these Games and, while the loss of Ermine would undoubtedly be a setback for the pack, they were far from beaten. And the odds were still very much in their favour, just as they almost always were. In fact, had Fern been a citizen of the Capitol, her money would have been on Nero, the boy from District 2; he had the strength and ferocity typical of his district, which had produced many of the toughest tributes to appear in the Games. The fact that District 2 tributes almost always reached at least the final eight reflected this.

Which, Fern reflected, meant Nero would not be easy to kill, especially since he was bound to have the rest of the Career pack watching his back. But, if she could take out the other Careers first . . . Yes, that was what she should do and Adrian could help her.

* * *

The days passed, punctuated by the nightly ritual of watching the sky to see who had died during the course of each day. There were no deaths on the third day, nor on the fourth, but the fifth day saw the boys from Districts 8 and 9 and the girl from 12 fall to the Career pack. "Eleven of us left," Adrian remarked as he and Fern watched the death recap that night. Less than half the twenty-four tributes who had entered this arena remained and, over the coming days, ten more of them would die.

Fern looked at her axe, recalling the moment she buried it in Ermine's back. So far, she and Adrian had not encountered any of the remaining Careers, but she knew that situation could not last forever. Sooner or later, the Gamemakers were bound to take steps to force the tributes to come together and fight; they did so every year. Just for a moment, Fern wondered what they would do this year. Announce a "feast"? Set off a "natural" disaster? But, whatever they did, they generally waited until only a few tributes were left and there had been no deaths for a while; with eleven still alive, it was unlikely the audience in the Capitol would be growing restless just yet. Especially when there had been three deaths today.

But Fern had seen enough Hunger Games over the years to know that Districts 1, 2 and 4 could generally be counted on to have tributes still alive when that stage was reached. Their tributes had trained for the Games all their lives, giving them a considerable advantage over the other nine districts. And, with five Careers still in the running, Fern knew the odds were still very much in their favour. Unless . . . She sat up straight as an idea occurred to her, an idea which, if it worked, would eliminate some, if not all, of the remaining Careers from the Games. If it didn't, she and Adrian could well be joining the list of the dead, but she reasoned that it was going to happen to at least one of them anyway. It would be better if they died doing something, instead of just waiting for the Careers to find them.

"Adrian?" she said.

Adrian, who had been checking the contents of his pack, looked round at the sound of her voice. "Yeah?"

"Remember when I said I wanted to take the Careers out? Well, I think I've come up with a way to do it . . ."

And Adrian, who was as keen to see the Careers eliminated (or at least reduced in number) as she was, found himself listening closely as she outlined her plan.

* * *

Fern knew the Careers would never be able to pass up an opportunity to kill and she planned to use that to her advantage and try to lure them into a trap. With that in mind, she used her axe to chop down two small trees, which she and Adrian spent the whole of the next day fashioning into makeshift dummies. T-shaped frames for the torsos and arms. Two burlap bags which Adrian had managed to grab at the Cornucopia formed the heads, stuffed with leaves and tied onto the frames using twine from Fern's pack. "Now for the finishing touch," said Fern, taking off her jacket and draping it over one of the dummies. She zipped the jacket up and turned to Adrian, telling him to take off his own jacket and put it on the other dummy.

Adrian frowned as he looked at the two dummies. "Will these really fool the Careers?" For the life of him, he couldn't see how this was going to work; it was obvious neither of the dummies was real. Still, he reflected, at least it would get the people in the Capitol wondering what the two remaining tributes from Districts 5 and 7 were up to.

"Not in broad daylight," Fern replied. "We'll wait until it starts to get dark and then set them up."

Late that afternoon, while there was still enough light to see, Adrian and Fern set up a campfire. While at the Training Centre, they had been warned to be careful when lighting fires to make sure the smoke couldn't be seen by the other tributes. Now, however, they wanted the smoke to be seen, wanted to draw in the Careers - they just hoped the smoke wouldn't attract the tributes from Districts 3 and 10. Still, Fern reasoned, they seemed to be staying out of the way - she hadn't seen any of them since the first day - and it was unlikely they would risk going near a campfire that might have enemies gathered around it. The Careers on the other hand . . .

As the Capitol seal appeared above the arena (no faces tonight) Fern stuck the two dummies into the ground and pulled the hoods of the jackets up over their heads. Adrian then lit the campfire using matches from his pack; he and Fern waited until the fire was well ablaze before withdrawing a short distance, taking their weapons with them. Now, all they had to do was wait for the Careers to see the smoke and go to investigate.

* * *

"What's keeping them?" Adrian demanded, shivering without his jacket. He looked at the dummies; from a distance in the dim evening light, they looked for all the world like two people sitting around a campfire. Sitting targets for the Careers if any of them decided to show up, which they almost certainly would, he reminded himself. So where were they? They must have seen the smoke by now.

Just as he was beginning to think he and Fern would be waiting all night, Adrian saw two boys approaching the campsite. One of the boys was Ermine's district partner, Gild, who carried a bow in his right hand and had a quiver of arrows strapped to his back. His companion, Sharkey from District 4, carried a trident, a three-pronged weapon with which many tributes from his district were highly skilled. Indeed, it had been Sharkey who killed Fern's district partner at the Cornucopia, spearing him with the same trident, but neither Adrian nor Fern were aware of this. They had fled as soon as they were equiped with weapons and supplies, choosing not to stick around for the bloodbath.

"Huh! Nothing but dummies!" Adrian and Fern heard Sharkey say. As the two tributes watched, he pulled one of the dummies (the one wearing Fern's jacket) out of the ground and flung it into the nearby fire. "We've been . . ." Before he could say the word "tricked", he fell backwards with Fern's axe buried in his chest. The cannon fired, announcing to any tributes who might be listening that fourteen of their number were now dead. Ten remained.

As Fern hurried to retrieve her axe, Adrian saw Gild fit an arrow to his bow. He called out to alert her to the danger, but his warning came a fraction of a second too late and Fern soon joined Sharkey on the ground. But the cannon didn't fire, meaning she had not been killed outright, though Adrian failed to register this fact in the heat of the moment. Heedless of the fact that Gild had several more arrows in his quiver, he rushed into the fray and thrust his sword into the District 1 boy's stomach. Then, as Gild fell to his knees, Adrian finished him off by slashing his throat. Boom! Nine tributes left.

Adrian turned his attention to Fern, who was lying on the ground with Gild's arrow in her chest. She coughed up blood, telling him that the arrow must have punctured a lung, an injury which might have been survivable had she had access to a hospital. Out here in the wilderness, however, there was nothing that could be done for her; she was dying. Adrian knelt down beside her and took her hand; she gripped it tightly as if in a final, desperate attempt to cling to life. But they both knew it was hopeless.

* * *

"We did it," Adrian whispered to Fern, looking at the bodies of the boys from Districts 1 and 4. Sharkey still had Fern's axe buried in his chest and Adrian debated whether or not to go and retrieve it. In the end, he decided not to; Fern had no further use for it and he had his sword, the sword he had inherited from Ermine. That, he recalled, was when he and Fern first became allies, but they had made their alliance knowing this moment was bound to come sooner or later.

"Three down, three to go," said Fern, referring to her plan to try and wipe out the Careers. Between them, she and Adrian had taken out both tributes from District 1 and one from District 4, but she knew she would not live to see the remaining Careers eliminated. "Adrian," she added, her voice growing weaker as she coughed up more blood, "try to win - for me."

"I'll do my best." There was nothing else Adrian could say. He knew the odds were still against him, but he had no wish to let a dying girl down.

"Kiss me." Fern's voice was barely audible and Adrian wondered for a moment if he'd heard her correctly. "Kiss me," Fern said again. "I've never been kissed . . . before. This is . . . my last . . . chance . . ."

Adrian felt awkward; he hadn't had much experience with girls and he was still at the stage of not quite knowing how to handle the opposite sex. Being allies with Fern was one thing, but kissing her? Nonetheless, he had to try; it was her last request and, besides, it might also be his last chance. So he leaned forward and gently brushed his lips against her cheek, sensing as he did so that she was beginning to slip away. And, as he pulled away from her, he heard the cannon fire.


End file.
